Undeterred, coalition repeats call for Tensing conviction in retrial

Brian Taylor, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Cincinnati speaks during a rally at Inwood Park in the Mt. Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati on Wednesday, May 31, 2017. (Photo: Sam Greene, The Enquirer)

Six months have not taken away the sting of a hung jury in the Ray Tensing trial or softened the call for a conviction in his retrial.

A couple of hundred protesters gathered Wednesday night at Inwood Park in Mount Auburn to demand the former University of Cincinnati police officer go to jail for shooting and killing unarmed black motorist Sam DuBose.

Inwood Park is a few blocks from Rice and Valencia streets, where Tensing had pulled over DuBose for a missing front license plate on July 19, 2015.

"When I say Tensing, you say guilty," Black Lives Matter's Brian Taylor said through a megaphone at the start of the rally. "When I say Tensing you say jail."

Tensing's lawyer said his client feared for his life because DuBose was driving away and dragging him.

Black Lives Matter and its affiliated organizations in the coalition marched last fall before the first Tensing trial. Many of those same organizations were represented Wednesday night: Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition, Peaslee Neighborhood Center, Amos Project and Cincinnati branch of the NAACP. University Students for Survivors , a group promoting the needs of survivors of sexual violence on campus, is new to the coalition for the retrial.

Robert Richardson, of the Cincinnati NAACP, speaks to lend his organizations support to the Black Lives Matter Cincinnati group during a rally at Inwood Park in the Mt. Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati on Wednesday, May 31, 2017. (Photo: Sam Greene, The Enquirer)

Local NAACP President Rob Richardson Sr. spoke to protesters, calling them "soldiers for justice." He pledged the chapter's support in the collective movement calling for Tensing's conviction.

"We await accountability and justice, which is a conviction with jail time," Richardson said through a megaphone.

After the Inwood rally, protesters planned to march south on Vine Street and through Over-the-Rhine, Taylor said.

The large group chanted at various times through the rally: "There's just one place I know where Tensing belongs, and that's jail."

Equal numbers of whites and African-Americans were in attendance Wednesday night. Among them were Catholic nuns, white Protestant ministers, Hispanic worker activists, feminist activists, gay rights activists and about a dozen children. One white man in a Black Lives Matter T-shirt pulled his two young children in a wagon.

The protest, originally scheduled for May 24, had to be postponed because of thunderstorms.

The scene was similar to the one there Oct. 22, a sunny Saturday afternoon last year, just three days before the start of the first Tensing trial.

Marshals gave instructions, and protesters marched to the Hamilton County Courthouse.

Black Lives Matter members and members of other aligned groups had a presence daily at the courthouse during the first Tensing trial.